Learn to be Lonely
by WanderingJane
Summary: You wear solitude like a crown.


It begins in death - the air stills suddenly around you and you find it harder and harder to breathe. It hurts more than you can bear. You hear your sister's pained gasps and want to go to her, but you can't. The burning in your chest is too much. The lights dim slowly and it feels like an eternity before you finally lose conscious. In reality, it all happened in a matter of seconds, but every detail, from the crazed look on your father's face to the peculiar taste of the wine are permanently engrained in your memory.

The lights dim.

Sound empties.

You breathe one last time.

You die.

You die with the image of your sister's dead eyes staring back at you.

When you finally wake up again, everything feels different. It's colder, emptier, sharper. You don't know what to make of it. You want to explore everything, to try to find some kind of warmth, but you can't, not when all you can think of is the gnawing, aching, paralyzing hunger that's tearing a hole in your stomach.

You stumble dazedly through the village until your father's finds you and shoves a girl into your arms. _'Drink,' _he commands. You don't think. You feel the pain of something sharp tearing through your gums, but it doesn't really bother you. Someone could chop a limb off and you wouldn't even notice. Your attention is focused solely on the pulse fluttering in the girl's neck.

You don't think. It's all instinct when you tear into her neck and drink deep. You drink and drink and drink until she falls limp in your arms. She falls to the floor in a soft heap and you stare dispassionately at her body. The implications of what just happened don't occur to you. You feel your father's – Mikael's – stare but pay no attention to it. Wordlessly, you both turn and walk in opposite directions.

It takes several hundred years, but you finally understand the significance of that moment. You had a choice. You could have run away, could have fought off Mikael or thrown yourself into a fire. You could have chosen to die. But you didn't. You chose to live. For whatever reason – family, honor, revenge, spite – you chose to live. You didn't realize at the time that in choosing to live, you also chose loneliness.

You live in loneliness and it consumes you. You wear it like a crown. So you cling – to your family, to your revenge, to the doppelganger. You do everything in your considerable power to try to stave off the cold lonliness that's settled deep within your undead body.

It's no use. One by one, your family leaves you and you're forced to carry them around in coffins. Rebekah's betrayal hurts the most. Even after hundreds of years together, she still chose Stefan. She still left you alone.

It's that desperate, all-consuming solitude that forces you to make hybrids and go after the doppelganger. You like power. You like being feared. It's intoxicating to create your own army of hybrids. You bask in the feeling of being at the head of a new species – the first hybrid.

It doesn't cure the ache in your chest. Being around Stefan, despite the stinging reminder of Rebekah's betrayal, helps dull the pain, but it's still not enough. You still dream of blood and death and cold.

It isn't until you meet a feisty blonde that things start to change. You don't notice her at first. Only cursory glances are spared her way. After that, she's merely a tool to use against the sheriff. And then…

And then…she's dying in front of you and it's just like Rebekah and nothing like it all at the same time. She's dying all alone and she's shivering because of the fever and it's all too much for you. You planned to save her all alone, but unrehearsed words spill from your lips and you find yourself trying to comfort her.

She changes everything. She, with her bouncy curls and bright smile, bring warmth and peace. You find yourself itching for charcoal, wishing to capture her eyes on paper. She's part of the doppelganger's little group of followers. And you don't care.

At the end of everything, when you've been shot, stabbed, burned, frozen and torn from your own body, you find yourself comforting her once again, making promises of a happy future that you have every intention of making a reality. It's going to take a while to get used to the new you. This body, while not unfortunate looking, feels all sorts of wrong. It's too tight, too hot, and too clumsy. It's only when Caroline's in your arms that you feel like you can breathe.

You know that she'll never forgive you when she finds out – and she will, eventually, find out; you've no doubt about it – that you're occupying her beloved's body. She'll find out and you'll be left alone again. But you're enjoying these moments for now – the simple act of talking to someone, of having someone listen attentively and without judgment, to have someone share the burden of immortality and the loneliness it brings.

It will end soon. The witch will restore your body, Caroline will be reunited with Tyler, and you'll be left all alone.

Just like before, and just like you'll always be - alone.


End file.
